


You'll Always Have Me

by golden_gardenias



Series: Prompt Fills [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Some angst, Tumblr Prompt, maybe A.U.gust contribution?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2145966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_gardenias/pseuds/golden_gardenias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Ian has a twin sister named Grace.  This is how she fits in with the Gallagher (and Milkovich) clan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Always Have Me

**Author's Note:**

> i received an anonymous prompt for a fic in which ian has a twin sister who is "really shy, and maybe she doesn't really likes beer or doesn't really smoke." i'm gonna do a series with her, so i hope she's received well. there'll be a few one-shots to cover the major events of each season and how she fits in to all of it. this one's mostly for background, leading up to stuff that happens in the pilot and leaving it open for the next part.
> 
> i hope the anon likes it! she's not really that shy, i made her into a kind of gentle, but still take-no-prisoners badass (hopefully), but she won't drink or smoke, just like you wanted. she's pretty responsible. and this first part is a compilation of vignettes depicting how she interacts with ian, lip, and fiona. the younger ones will be later.

The first conscious memory Grace Gallagher has is of her family.  She and Ian are four, Lip is five, and Fiona is nine.  They’re at a park, playing on the swings and competing to see who can swing the highest.  It’s mostly been reduced to sounds at this point, having been revisited several times throughout her life; joyous laughter and playful taunting and gentle teasing echoing over and over again in her head.  She can remember the crisp smell of autumn in the air, the crunch of dead leaves, the squeak of the swing set.

The colors don’t start to come in until the end, when the exuberant shouts morph into screams of pain.

Red.  Deep, vivid red.

She remembers that Lip had dared Ian to jump off, had accused him of being a wuss when he hadn’t.  She remembers that Ian always wanted to impress Lip, who was smarter than all of them, who always knew how to manipulate people and take advantage.

She remembers the sharp snap and Ian’s immediate howling.  She remembers Fiona’s frantic cries, telling him incessantly that everything would be okay.  She remembers Lip sitting in his stopped swing, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and shocked.  She remembers that she’d screamed herself hoarse watching her brother bleed and sob as their older sister tried to do something for his mangled arm.

She remembers not knowing where her parents were.

The parents of the other children at the playground were horrified, and one mother had called for an ambulance, yelling over Ian’s agony.  The paramedics arrived and loaded Ian in, looking around for an adult to ride with him.  Fiona had grabbed her and Lip’s hands and stepped forward, still crying but keeping her head high.  When they’d gotten to the hospital and were unable to find Frank or Monica, child protective services had been contacted.  They’d tearfully confessed to the woman who interviewed them that no, Frank and Monica didn’t have cell phones, no, there wasn’t a work number, no, there wasn’t a house number.  “We don’t have a house, we live in our van.”

That was their first time in foster care.

The siblings had been split down the middle--Lip and Fiona placed in one home and Ian and Grace in another--until their parents finally turned up and managed to fabricate something; a judge believed them to be reformed and, lo and behold, the first Gallagher con of the system had been a success.  Frank was very proud of his accomplishment, getting blackout drunk and partying with Monica while still wearing their sobriety pins, slurring that no one would ever take his kids away from him, that he would always get them back.

For a few weeks after that Grace found herself missing the home she and Ian had with Mrs. Green.  There were a lot of rules and the children who lived there were locked into their rooms at night, but they’d managed to make friends: two pale black-haired children, a boy and a girl, like them, but not twins.  Both had healing bruises and cuts, and the boy had a cast to match Ian’s.  The foursome spent their nights laying awake and doodling with the markers Mrs. Green set out after lunch time.  The black-haired girl had been hoarding since their arrival, drawing pictures in the dead of night to make her brother smile.  He was a quiet kid, and Ian seemed drawn to him, determined to make him talk.

His tactics never worked, but Ian was the only one who could make the boy laugh.

She remembers watching her brother closely after they’d been given back to their parents: watching him flex his fingers experimentally and stare at his newly liberated limb, watching him draw pictures onto the pallid skin of his forearm, watching him write the boy’s name in an endless loop.

 _Mickey_.

 

* * *

 

She’s six, and she and Ian see Mickey and his sister around town sometimes.  They’re being pulled along by a pale dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes.  She takes them to the playground, the same one Ian broke his arm at, and pushes them on the swings.

They laugh each time their swings crest and walk home chattering animatedly while the woman smiles congenially down at them.  She remembers being surprised at seeing Mickey so happy.

Mickey and Ian are on the same Little League team, and Ian comes back from practices telling her all about how he and Mickey are best friends now and that she should sneak in to watch under the bleachers so they can all play catch afterwards.  He assures her that Mickey asked his sister to do it, too, and that Mickey brags about how Mandy can throw better than Ian.

She goes to practice and watches Ian stick to Mickey’s side like glue while Mickey tries repeatedly to shake him off, rolling her eyes.  Ian was never good at reading people.

“No, Grace,” he explained later, “Mickey’s only mean _because_ we’re friends.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” she insisted.  “Why would you be mean to your best friend?”

“Don’t you remember what Fiona said?  Boys are only mean to you because they like you and they don’t want anyone to find out.”

“Well I still don’t think he should push you all the time,” she grumbled.

He smiled.  “At least I know he cares.  He doesn’t push anyone else,” he said proudly.

She narrowed her eyes in confusion.  “That means he’s bullying you, Ian.”

“No, it means he doesn’t like anyone else as much as he likes me.”

She sighed, knowing from Ian’s grin that he wouldn’t budge on the issue.  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t worry,” he assured her.  “I’ve got him all figured out.”

 

* * *

 

She’s seven, and Ian doesn’t talk about Mickey anymore.  He comes home with cuts on his knuckles and a split lip and a black eye, refusing to speak to anyone.

“Mickey says we can’t be friends anymore,” he murmured to her after everyone had gone to sleep.

She frowned.  “Why not?”

He shrugged, eyes wet with tears.  “I don’t know.  We were holding hands like we always do, and this mean guy came over and started yelling, so he pushed me down and hit me.”

“But doesn’t he always do that?”

“He never hit me in the face, though.  And he spit at me.”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Maybe you really were never friends to begin with.”

“No, we _were_ , I know we were.  He wasn’t always mean.  When it was just us he would smile and laugh like he used to, with his mom.  He even told me some stories about her.  He was really sad when she died.”

She remembers coming to practice only to find the field empty, save for Ian and Mickey, laying next to each other on a discarded, ratty picnic blanket, holding hands and pointing at the clouds.

“You can’t just fake that kind of stuff, Grace.  We were friends, I know it.”

She doesn’t believe him until she sees Mickey a few days later, walking along with the mean man Ian was talking about.  He’s wearing clothes that are too big for him and has bruises on his face.

His eyes are dead, and she remembers Ian being the only one who could light them up.

 

* * *

 

She and Ian are twelve, and he and Lip are inseparable.  Ian follows Lip around like a puppy, and Lip preens at the attention.  It makes her sick, the way Ian worships him, always trying to find a way to impress him.  And she especially hates Lip’s knowing smirk when he catches her watching them enviously.

“It’s normal,” Fiona says, trying to comfort her.  “They’re boys, it’s perfectly natural for them to want to spend time together and pursue interests they don’t want you to be a part of.”

“But it’s not _fair_ ,” she insists.  “ _I’m_ the one who’s always been there for him, all Lip does is get him in trouble.”

“Come on, you know they always take care of each other.  Lip always takes the fall when it’s something serious, right?  He’d never let anything bad happen to him.”

“He better not,” she replies darkly, watching her brothers run in laughing.

Later, after Ian has fallen asleep, Grace climbs into Lip’s bunk to poke him awake.  “The fuck you want, Gracie?” he asks blearily.

“Stop making Ian steal things,” she commands.

“What?”  He sits up, rubbing his eyes.

“Stop involving him in your scams and making him steal things.”

“I’m not making him do anything,” he scoffs.

She rolls her eyes.  “Oh please.  You’ve got him acting like he’s your disciple.  You say jump, he’ll do it, and he’ll break his arm.”

“Jesus, will you stop holding that over my head?  And you’ve got it all wrong; he comes with me because he wants to.”

“Because he wants to impress you.”

He shrugs.  “Maybe, but if he wants to learn how to make some extra cash, then he should be able to.”

“If he wants to make cash, he should get a job.”

“He’s _twelve_ , Grace.  It’s illegal to hire twelve-year-olds.”

“Well if you keep this up, you’ll get him thinking that scams are the only way to make money.”

“They are when you’re poor,” he points out.

“Not when you’re Ian,” she says fiercely.  He seems surprised by her vehemence.  “He’s gonna get a real job, one that comes with a paycheck and benefits and sick days.  You aren’t gonna get him in trouble and get him stuck here for the rest of his life.”

He stares at her.  “Look, if he’s stupid enough to--”

“Don’t call him stupid.”

“I wasn’t--”

“I don’t care.  Don’t call him stupid.”

He glares.  “Fine.  If he gets caught, it’s not my fault.  And you can’t blame me for him not getting out, either.”

“Well when he talks about doing something with his life and making himself important and you fucking _snort_ instead of encouraging him, then yes, I can blame you.”  She jumps down from his bed and gets into hers.  “I know it’s hard, but don’t be a dick.”

 

* * *

 

She and Ian are thirteen.  Monica’s pregnant, and Grace hates the defeated look in Fiona’s eyes every time she looks at their mother’s belly.  Fiona looks defeated a lot these days, actually, especially when she looks at the calendar hanging on the side of the fridge.  There’s a day circled in red coming up in the middle of June, and it’s like something breaks inside her each time she sees it.

Grace catches Fiona crying in her room once that day has arrived, staring at pictures of smiling teenagers in blue caps and gowns on the family’s clunky computer.  She hastily closes the lid and wipes her eyes when she notices Grace in the doorway, but allows herself to break down again when Grace hugs her.

Fiona had dropped out two years ago, once the extent of her parents’ unreliability had been proven one too many times and it had become apparent that the three jobs she worked were infinitely more important than her English homework.  No fanfare had come with the decision, and it was gradual that they noticed she no longer stayed up all night trying to finish trigonometry assignments and spent more time grocery shopping and paying bills.  Frank had commiserated with her over a bottle that night, lamenting his lost youth and praising her for refusing to become a cog in the broken machine that was the American educational system.

Grace whispered what she’d overheard of that conversation to Ian as Lip slept, and the two of them vowed to never become their father.

Fiona’s arms are tight around her now, and tears are soaking through her pajama shirt, but she ignores them, gripping her older sister closer to her and trying to transmit as much strength as it’s possible for a scrawny thirteen-year-old to give into the embrace.  Fiona pulls away and smiles sadly at her after a few more minutes, wiping her bloodshot eyes.  “Don’t be like me, Gracie,” she whispers.  “Please don’t be like me.”

Grace nods.  “I promise.”

 

* * *

 

She and Ian are fourteen, walking home from school in comfortable silence.  Ian stops her with a hand on her arm.  “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?  Not even Lip?”

She cocks her head to the side, reading the plea for sympathy in his green eyes.  “What’s the dirt?” she asks.

He looks around before leaning in.  “I slept with someone.”

Her eyebrows shoot up in surprise.  “You slut, who?”

He bites his lip and glances around them again before leading her into an alley.  “Roger Spikey,” he says quietly.

“‘Donkey Dick’ Roger Spikey?”

“The one and only,” he replies, leaning against the wall with a far off look on his face.

“Wow.”  She takes a moment to process.  “Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?”

He shrugs.  “Yeah, but it’s not like I’m asking him to leave her or anything.  It was just sex.  Casual locker room sex.”

She snorts.  “In the locker room?  My my, aren’t we adventurous.”

“Well it’s not like we planned it or anything.  It just sort of...happened.”

“How does sex just sort of happen?”

“It was after gym and everyone was changing, but he was just standing there in his underwear and talking with his friends.  I was trying not to stare, but there was sweat on his chest and you could see the outline of his dick--”

She rushed to stop him.  “Okay, that’s enough.  I don’t need to know all that, thank you very much.  Can you skip through your perving?”

“I wasn’t perving, he was flirting with me!  I swear he winked a couple times.”

“Uh huh,” she said dubiously.

“He did!” he insisted.  “And once everyone left he came up to me and said he was gonna take a shower and needed help washing his back.”

Her mouth drops open.  “No way.”

“I know!”

“So you had locker room shower sex?  You dog.  How was it?”

He shrugs.  “It’s not like I have anything to compare it to, but I guess it was okay.  He was a lot tighter than I thought he’d be.”

She blinked.  “Okay first of all, ew.  Second of all, you fucked him?  I thought you’d been dreaming about that dick for months.”

“Shut up,” he snapped.  “I only had one dream.  And his ass is nice too, so it’s not like it was a total loss.”

She laughs.  “So walking wet dream Roger Spikey cheated on his long-time girlfriend Maureen with the dorky redheaded virgin?  You don’t sound like mistress material to me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.  “He asked for my number, said he’d let me know when he wanted to meet up again.”

“You don’t have a phone,” she pointed out.  “And we can’t afford for you to use the emergency cell for sexts.”

“I’m gonna start working at the Kash & Grab soon, so I can buy minutes when we need them.”

She eyed him uncertainly.  “Hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t worry, I got it.  Just don’t tell Lip.  Or Fiona.”

“That you lost your virginity or that you lost it to a boy?”

“Either,” he deadpanned.

“I don’t know why you’re keeping it a secret, man.  It’s not like they’d care.”

“You don’t know that,” he said quietly.  “Sometimes Lip...says things.  I don’t want him to know yet.”

“Fair enough.  Hope you’re wearing a raincoat.”

 

* * *

 

Grace and Ian are almost fifteen.  Their mother has been gone on her longest stint yet; eight months, missing Liam’s first birthday last week.  Everyone’s coping pretty well, and even Debbie seems to have finally given up hope that she would return to them.

She’s doing homework in the room she shares with Ian and Lip when her twin bursts in, shucking off his jacket and throwing himself on his bed, face down.  He’d gone to work right after school, and was understandably tired.

“Hey,” she said, throwing her pen cap at him.  “I got most of your algebra done, you’ll have to finish before--when did you get that?”

She’d just noticed his jacket, a sleek black leather with the Blackhawks logo on it.

He sat up to look at her.  “What?”

“You didn’t have that before, where’d you get it?”

He looked back and forth between her and the jacket blankly.  “It was a birthday present,” he supplied lamely.

She furrowed her brows.  “Our birthday’s in April, and it’s still February.”

He gulped.  “An early birthday present, from the Karibs.  They’re gonna be out of town that week.”

“That’s still a good two months before our birthday.  They couldn’t wait til March, at least?”

At this point, Ian was blushing like a virgin on her wedding night, and she knew something was up.  “Ian, who gave you the jacket?”

“Just, um, this guy I’ve been seeing.”

She set her notebooks aside.  “A guy you’ve been seeing?” she echoed.  “You haven’t mentioned anyone.”

“I don’t have to give you all the details of my personal life, you know.”

Something clicked in her head, juxtaposing what he’d said about the Karibs and the guy he’d been seeing.  “Are you fucking Kash?”

He sat up, shocked.  “What?  No,” he said quickly.

She knew he was lying.  “Ew, what is he, forty?”

“No, gross!  He’s thirty-six.”

“Yeah, because that’s so much better.  He’s still an adult, and he shouldn’t be touching you, Ian.”

“It’s not like that, I swear.”

“Oh really?  It’s not like your married forty-year-old boss is molesting his fifteen-year-old employee?”

“He isn’t molesting me, Jesus!  We’re fucking, it’s not a big deal.”

“Oh yes it fucking is!  Not only is he your _boss_ , he’s also a _pedophile_ and _married_.”

“He’s not a pedophile!  Pedophiles prey on pre-pubescent children.”

“And I bet you only know that because you looked it up to make sure you weren’t some predator’s victim.  Well newsflash, you are.”

“Come on, I’m not a victim, we’re equals!”

“Equals?!  The distribution of power in this ‘relationship’ or whatever you want to call it is not equal, Ian.  He’s _your boss_ , and if you don’t do what he wants, he could fire you.  He’s _married_ , so he’ll make sure to keep everything a secret and string you along for as long as he likes.  He’s _fucking forty_ , and you’re _fifteen_.  You don’t see anything wrong with this picture?”

“He’s gay, and he didn’t have the chance to act on it when he was younger.  He didn’t even really realize it until after he married Linda, anyway.”

“If he’s gay, then he’s attracted to _men_ , not little boys.”

“I’m not a little boy!”

“Oh please, you’re a fucking peach!  If he wants to get his rocks off so badly, he can just go to Boystown like all the other gays in this city.”

“Boystown?” he asked, confused.

She rolled her eyes.  “Yes, Boystown.  What kind of homosexual are you?”

“The kind that fucks guys,” he quipped.

“Yeah?  Well not this guy.  Not anymore.”

“You can’t keep me from seeing him, Grace.”

“Can’t I?  Watch me.”

**

_“Linda Karib?”_

_“Speaking.  Who’s this?”_

_“Your husband’s not who you think he is.”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_“Ask him about Ian.”_

_“What?  Our cashier?”_

_“Ask him if he likes young dick.”_

_“ **Excuse me**?”_

_“I wouldn’t let him around your boys if I were you.”_

_“What are you talking about?”_

 **

“You fucking bitch!”  Ian stormed into their room like a charging rhinoceros.  “You told her!”

“Damn right I told her!”

“She’s blackmailing him into having another kid, she’s trapping him again!”

“The fuck do I care if he gets trapped?  He should be in prison!  And don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same fucking thing for me!  No, wait, you wouldn’t have; you and Lip would’ve gone to beat the guy up to defend my honour or some other macho bullshit.”

“That’s different,” he insisted.

“Different how?  Because you’re a boy?”

“Because he was all I had!  Roger graduated, he’s off at OSU, and there’s no one else in this whole fucking town who’s like me!  He was the only one I had, and you ruined it!”

She stayed silent for a moment, watching the way his clenched fists shook at his sides and taking in his fuzzy red hair that stood up at all ends, the way his face was stained by countless freckles.  His eyes were shining with angry tears, and he looked so much younger than he was.  “You idiot,” she said softly, stepping forward and grabbing his hand.  “You still have me.  No matter what, you’ll _always_ have me.”

**Author's Note:**

> there's a lot of tense changes, but i kind of like it that way?? i deliberately messed up tenses lol. and for some reason i'm picturing grace as blonde? and she may or may not have glasses. no wait, she totally has glasses. blond hair, green eyes, and glasses with black plastic frames. also i'm like 94% sure she's asexual.


End file.
